Love Song of Tomorrow
by MisatoKitty
Summary: Continuing on from the end of Saikano, crossing over into Evangelion. If you haven't seen Saikano yet, be warned: Major spoilers are within.
1. Love Song 1

DISCLAIMER: Relatively standard stuff. Existing characters are properties of the people who made them up. Other, original, characters are mine, and so's the story, hence ownership and copyright of them belongs to me. Contact me at domino@netaccess.com.au if you want permission to use anything I've written for whatnot purposes.  
  
  
NOTE: This story includes major spoilers for the series Saishu-heiki Kanojo. If you don't want to know how the series ends, or anything that happens in it, I'd suggest stopping reading now.  
  
  
  
Love Song of Tomorrow  
  
By  
  
Raymond Cooper  
  
Chapter 1  
  
** The Last Memory **  
  
  
  
My last living memory is of a huge tsunami gushing towards me like a locomotive.  
  
Or like one of the many warplanes we all had seen more and more often in these last days of our world.  
  
Regional wars, spreading like wildfire into big, huge global conflicts. Or so I guess from what little my girlfriend had told me in these last days. "It's really bad on the other side of the world," she had said. I guessed, seeing how bad things were here in Japan, that she was understating things somewhat.  
  
But watching my home town, where I was born, grew up in, lived, loved, and I guessed about to die in... watching it destroyed by earthquake then tsunami... all the while, the last of the foreign invader forces trying to smash their way into the city, what they perceived as safety.  
  
Only safe because of Chise. My girlfriend.  
  
She'd stopped the war from touching here as best she could. We'd had the occasional wake-up call... the bombing raid in nearby Sapporo, the enemy jet that crashed into the hills... and now this... the last elements of humanity fighting for a foothold on what they saw as the best, last place to survive.  
  
And it wasn't to be.  
  
The massive spires my girlfriend had become... huge suborbital chunks of metal emanating from a source high above the clouds... they defended, protected what they could. Huge swathes of energy flashed down with purpose, cutting down the invaders before they could touch ground. Dozens of enemy jets, possibly now the last in the world, were dashed against her mobile columns of inorganic living matter.  
  
Chise would protect me. Of that I had no doubt.  
  
But the tsunami... that made me doubt.  
  
She tried to protect me. I remember, as the wave bore down on my position, an inarticulate shout, a scream of protest, then an iceburg of living metal shifted across my vision. I sighed in relief, knowing I was safe.  
  
Alive, I remember nothing after that.  
  
******  
  
We're here together now, wherever here is. Maybe it's heaven, maybe it's hell. I'm with Chise, though... and she's with me, and all's right with the world. She was saved within me. When the world was destroyed, she saved me and I saved her. How, I'm not sure. But she said my heart was big enough to contain both of us, and so here she is. She was surprised at that, but then she'd forgotten a lot before the end. She'd made herself forget, so she could fight more, protect me and our families.  
  
Wherever here is, it looks like our world.  
  
We're here at school, sitting in the playground, watching the sun rise on our first day together... by ourselves. We both feel a curious sense of dislocation - the fact our souls appear to be conjoined lets us feel more of what the other is feeling - and look about. But everything is as it should be. Chise's eyes have tears glistening around the edges - nothing new, but the faint smile on her face suggests to me that she's tearing up like this because she's happy also. Like I am. I can feel that, deep down.  
  
She turns back to me, and snuggles into my chest. I wrap an arm around her, draw her in tighter, closer, taking what comfort I can from her nearness, her warmth.  
  
"I can feel your heart," she whispers. "Toki... toki... toki... it sounds big enough for both of us."  
  
"I can feel yours, too," I say by way of reply, looking above her head towards the horizon. "Soft. Small. A counterpoint to mine... beating when mine does not. Almost like we cover for each other."  
  
"This is true," she says, and draws herself in closer to me. I don't mind. My other arm comes up and wraps around her as well, I just can't help it. We may be very lonely here together... wherever we are... but we will be happy. No longer does Chise have to worry about destroying the world, or cities, or killing... no longer does what Chise became have to be so cold-hearted and living only to kill. Both have moved on... and if this Chise is my Chise... the one I cherished in my mind... the Chise of my mind, the one she was at the end, rather than the Chise that my original girlfriend became when the weapon inside of her took over... then we will be extremely happy together.  
  
I feel so sad, though, that only we two survived the catastrophe that devastated the planet. We will be very lonely. yet, Chise does not seem to be worried. She has a curious smile on her face as she continues to listen to my heartbeat.  
  
"Chise...?"  
  
"Yes, Shuu-chan?"  
  
"Why are you smiling? Aren't we dead?"  
  
"No, Shuu-chan."  
  
"Then... what has happened here?"  
  
"That is classified information," she says soberly, but in a light tone, as when my old Chise used to become whatever it was that existed within her.  
  
"If there's no one else left alive but... us," I had been about to say 'me', but that didn't seem very diplomatic, even if we both knew it to be true, "then surely secrets no longer have meaning?"  
  
She snaps back to herself. "But Shuu-chan... we're not really alive anymore."  
  
******  
  
I ponder on that for a while as the sun rises. It seems to be majestic today... a huge globe of red flame rising from the calm blue waters of the ocean. So we are dead. That seems to be what she's saying right now. That is depressing... when she'd said I was the last alive, I'd thought that was true. The last alive in the world. But perhaps I did die.  
  
******  
  
My last living memory... gagging on water as it poured around Chise's form.  
  
******  
  
So I had died. And I just don't know it. It doesn't feel like I'm dead... but then not knowing what being dead feels like...  
  
But this does feel like I'm alive. Everything's like life... except there's only Chise and I, sitting in the schoolyard. Almost like there was no war, no death, no destruction. Everything's so peaceful, I can't believe everything's gone and this is only a memory. I can feel Chise beside me... feel the softness of her breasts beneath one of my arms. I'm dying to touch that again... I remember our last night together. Passion, comfort...  
  
Right now, I feel I need nothing but comfort. If everything really is gone... I need reassurance that nothing between us has changed. That we're still here for one another. But she's just smiling that strange smile... confident in whatever she's thinking.  
  
Something occurs to me right then. "Chise... you knew this was going to happen. How did you know?"  
  
"I'm the prototype of the device that's been causing the earthquakes."  
  
"... Prototype?"  
  
"Planned human evolution. The last hope for the survival of our race."  
  
"Like... you? A human weapon system?"  
  
"Mmm-hmm." She lifts her head from my chest, and looks out at the sun, just having cleared the horizon completely. It's completely red... no yellows, no orange. "And now we remain here until needed."  
  
Needed...? "The sun's all wrong," I say by way of conversation.  
  
"That's good... for you," Chise says.  
  
And then, it all goes away,  
  
******  
  
and come to, standing in the doorway of the class. It all has to be a dream... Akemi's sitting in a chair, staring at what looks to be a transfer student. Atsushi, he's peering out a window with Toke... staring at something below. Nori's even here, staring at the ceiling, but nowhere near Take.  
  
And then I see Chise. She's sitting by herself, vacant expression on her face. Something seems different about her... I'm not sure what. At the sound of me shutting the door to the class, though, she turns to face me. Her expression... there are no tears. There's no sign of an apology on her lips... she's just staring at me. There's a chair next to her, and I take it.  
  
There's utter silence in the classroom as I do so, conversations falling quiet all around like I've just done something incredibly stupid.  
  
I reach out... and rub her head. "Morning, Chise," I say.  
  
She just stares at me.  
  
And then I realise that I'm feeling another huge sense of dislocation. And I can't feel Chise within my heart any longer. And right now, everything just seems to weird. The world imprints itself over my senses, and I see this isn't Chise. She doesn't even look the same - blue hair, red eyes, alabaster skin - but then I catch sight of something in her eyes. A flicker of memory? A glimpse of recognition?  
  
It's gone as soon as I see it. But everyone still is silent. I get the feeling I've done something really weird. This girl - she can't be Chise, but I've seen weirder things from her in the last few months. So I made a mistake. But... I realise I know this girl. I know this... young woman. She's younger than Chise, but I'm younger than me, too.  
  
What's going on? I want to cry, but find I can't. I'm still staring, shocked, at the girl I thought was Chise.  
  
I start noticing more similarities about her. Her hair style. The blush that's come to her cheeks with my touch. The hand that creeps up, shaking, and touches my chest haltingly.  
  
Then she leans toward me, tips over her chair, her desk, falls onto my chest, ear pushing against me hard. "Toki, toki, toki," she whispers. "You sound so scared... Shin-chan."  
  
"Ayanami! There won't be any of that behaviour in this class!" Akemi announces as she pounces to her feet. The Akemi girl. Looking now, she looks nothing like Akemi. But there's something wrong with me. My heart beats faster and faster -  
  
******  
  
And again, I know nothing. But I remember.  
  
I remember everything.  
  
******  
  
My first living memory is of me, standing in a deserted city. Why I was here, I had no idea. A quick check of my clothes turns up an envelope, with Shinji Ikari written as the address. No street number or name, no city. Just a name. My name, I guessed. I turned around and around, but could see no one. Almost like my home city now... after the tsunami... after the quakes, the water, the death, the destruction.  
  
I felt something behind me, and I jerked about. Several blocks down the street, I saw her. Chise. Metalic angel wings sprouted from her back, hovering just above the surface of the roadway. She looks at me so sadly. A distant thud caused a group of nearby pigeons to take flight, and I glanced at them for a moment, but when I turned back, Chise was gone. And more, I couldn't feel her any longer in my heart. I just couldn't feel her presence any longer. That's when I began to feel fear.  
  
I could hear a car in the distance, but little else. Then some kind of advanced stealth gunship swung low over the rooftops, and I forgot about the car, forgot about Chise. It headed for a hill that flanked a nearby lake - another hill anchored the other side, much further away. I heard that thud again, felt it in the ground. What was it?  
  
Two gunships flew backwards from the opening between the hills, firing missiles in a ripple-volley from wing-mounted pods at something approaching them, that was some considerable distance above the ground.  
  
And then it stepped into view. The thought 'planned human evolution' leapt into my mind unbidden, and I felt horror beyond belief. I hadn't known such things could exist in this world.  
  
But was this my world? Or was this another? There was no Chise here, at least not with me, and not saving the city. Maybe she was somewhere else, fighting more of these creatures? Perhaps. If she's been ordered to, she would have. That was my girlfriend.  
  
This thing, though... was like something from a nightmare. It stepped like something from a Gojira movie, but in slow motion. Stick-limbs carried the matte-black creature, how I'm not certain, but they carried the weight of the being. The arms ended in a series of wicked claws, claws I saw that acted as fingers moments later when the arm lashed out lightning fast and grabbed one of the gunships from the air, crushing it into fragments. My mouth went dry. The face of the creature was an inanimate mask of white ivory. Like one of those Italian drama masks we'd covered in history as some point... that I've forgotten the name of. But the sad one. It looked so sad.  
  
It looked like Chise. Forced into acting because it had no other choice. This was what it was, was doing what it was made to do. I felt pity for it.  
  
It had gotten much closer than I'd realised while I was struck with horror, and when the foot crashed down little more than half a block away, I was shaken from my reverie by the shards of broken glass that zapped about the street from shattered windows. The creature's head turned down to face me, and I was struck again my an intense sense of dislocation, that it wasn't just that this creature resembled Chise but in some sense WAS Chise. I began to fear as it reached for me.  
  
But the car I'd heard earlier, and forgotten about, hadn't forgotten me. It came along one side of me, slowing rapidly, spun about in front of me and the occupant threw open a door so I could climb inside, and sped off again as the fingers dug deep into the concrete and steel of the roadway behind me. The car bounced and wobbled dangerously, but nothing too serious. In shock, I stared at the woman sitting opposite me. She was hunched a little determinedly over her steering wheel, and so I decided not to bother her for the moment. But I promised to ask what was going on as soon as the car stopped bouncing.  
  
She glanced sideways at me eventually. "Shinji Ikari?" I nodded, dumbly, not knowing what else to do. "Misato Katsuragi. Sorry I'm late, your father will have a fit. You think we can keep my lateness out of this?"  
  
She sounded like Akemi... the old Akemi I remember, almost, anyway. Not the crippled, bleeding thing that had been my best friend since I was a child. That beautiful woman, lying in her bed, so sad and ashamed that I could only see her as something so blasted and sliced. I nod at this woman again, still silent. What could I say? 'I'm sorry, but you've got the wrong person? This Shinji Ikari is still somewhere out there in the city?' But I wanted to live. Wanted so dearly to live. I kept silent.  
  
Besides, I remembered the letter in my pocket. Addressed to Shinji Ikari. Perhaps that was who I was. Perhaps Shuuji was simply a dream, a bad dream... but perhaps this was the dream. I just ddn't know. The woman was eying me strangely.  
  
"Are you hurt or anything?" she asked, and I shook my head. She pulled over onto the side of the road so she could check me for injuries, and even being so completely embarrassed, I couldn't help that healthy response. She either didn't notice, or ignored it, for she gave no sign of noticing a few extra bulges in my trousers. I, for one, wished I could curl up and die.  
  
But I knew I already had. Standing on the lookout, over the city, as the wave crashed in. Watching my home be destroyed, the school, Akemi's house and family, the few remaining friends of mine still alive... my past, my present, my future. Gone.  
  
Eventually, Miss Katsuragi was satisfied I wasn't damaged, and she smiled at me. I gave her a hesitant smile back, and watched her friendly expression change to one of horror. "No!" she shouted, "They're going to use an N2 mine!"  
  
Her face went white, followed quickly by the world, and once more, I thought I had died again.  
  
  
  
To Be Continued...  
  
Notes: Had this idea this morning, but it's taken most of the day to get something workable storywise. Hope people enjoy it. If it's well-received, will definitely continue... if it's not... then prolly not continued quite as fast as the other two major fics I've got underway atm. 


	2. Love Song 2

DISCLAIMER: Relatively standard stuff. Existing characters are properties of the people who made them up. Other, original, characters are mine, and so's the story, hence ownership and copyright of them belongs to me. Contact me at domino@netaccess.com.au if you want permission to use anything I've written for whatnot purposes.  
  
  
NOTE: This story includes major spoilers for the series Saishu-heiki Kanojo. If you don't want to know how the series ends, or anything that happens in it, I'd suggest stopping reading now.  
  
  
  
Love Song of Tomorrow  
  
By  
  
Raymond Cooper  
  
Chapter 2  
  
** Tomorrow, When The War Continued **  
  
  
  
I next knew anything when I opened my eyes. A woman's oversized breasts hung in front of my face, said woman clutching at her head, groaning. A slight trickle of blood issued from between her fingers, and dripped down just beyond my forehead. She opened her eyes momentarily, and looked at me. "Are you all right, Shinji?"  
  
I nodded. I was sore, possibly injured - ubt I was all right. Nothing felt broken, and apart from bruises, I felt nothing terribly wrong with my body. Just a sense of dislocation, like I should be somewhere else right now.  
  
Where, I had no idea. It was just a weird sensation.  
  
I looked up again at this woman, trying to focus beyond what was thrust, jiggling, in my face. "Uh..." What was her name? Oh yes. "Uh, Miss Katsuragi? Shouldn't we try and move? Find shelter?"  
  
She looked at me, a little annoyed. Quite why, I don't know. It was almost like she didn't want to move from her position above me. I realised, at that moment, I was still showing the excitement I'd experienced while she had checked me for injury before the blast, and she had noticed; how could she not? She was now sitting on my lap, legs either side of my body. I blushed deeply, and she sighed, wriggling off. "You're no fun," she moaned, and exited the car.  
  
I joined her outside a minute later, and helped her push the car over until it was righted. Thankfully, it was a small Honda - mostly plastic and light composite materials - else we'd not have been able to do it. I was surprised at the devastation in the region, and racked my memory for any idea as to what could have caused such damage.  
  
That's right: the woman, Miss Katsuragi, had said 'they' were going to set off an N2 mine. I knew from school and the news that they were the latest development in nuclear weapons, an advanced fusion device - high yield explosion, low blast radius and fallout. Most of everything was contained in an electromagnetic bubble field activated a scant microsecond before the bomb detonated, or so the news said. I think that the United Nations might have been covering the real information, for fear that someone might try to start another nuclear war, like the one that had blown up just after Second Impact.  
  
Something flicked at my mind, but I dismissed it as a random thought. It didn't form enough for me to register what it was; I just wanted to get to safety. If someone was launching N2 bombs, then that meant being outside a shelter would be damned dangerous.  
  
Miss Katsuragi got back into the car, having used duct tape to strap on the bits that had fallen off. I'd watched her nearly break into tears a couple of times, but she was strong, determined, and also in a hurry to get back to wherever she was taking me. She also grabbed a battery from a nearby car that had also been thrown by the explosion, once she found her car's battery had ruptured. Once I'd hopped back in, though, and the car was moving again, she looked very upset. But I had to ask a question.  
  
"Uh, Miss Katsuragi?"  
  
She brightened immediately. "Yes, Shinji?"  
  
"Should you have... uh... stolen that car's battery back there? What if the owner needs to get to a shelter, too?"  
  
I watched the expression on her face fall as she realised she could have just doomed someone to a slow and horrible death. She actually glanced into the rear view mirror, but obviously, she saw nothing, because I watched her pull herself together again into the cheery persona she'd been projecting up until now. "That's okay, because that was a parked car. The driver would have gotten to a shelter long ago. Tokyo-3's a city built for siege, didn't you know?"  
  
"No, I didn't... but isn't what you did stealing?"  
  
She didn't even have the decency to look ashamed for a second. "No, because I'm an important military official, and that means I can requisition anything I need to carry out my duties, and getting you to NERV HQ is my duty right now, so that makes it all right. Okay? Okay." She kept smiling, eyes shut. I wondered how she didn't drive off the road.  
  
But with those lighter questions out of the way, the big one had to come up now.  
  
"Miss Katsuragi?"  
  
"Misato."  
  
"Miss Misato? Is my... will my... Will I see my father there?"  
  
"Oh sure!" Miss Katsuragi gushed. "He's my boss, you know. He oversaw the whole project of... well, you'll see. We're almost there. I've got to call ahead and get a car train ready for us." She picked up her mobile, and exchanged a few terse words with someone on the other end of the call. I didn't pay much attention to her, because I turned, and looked back where the big black creature had been, where the N2 mine had gone off.  
  
The creature still stood. The Angel. Yes, I remembered then that name. The Angel stood there, silently, smoke blowing up off its charred form. And yet, something inside it was moving. The surface seemed to be shifting, the charred segments dropping to the ground. It was still... alive, I guessed would be the word. It definitely didn't look like any machine I'd ever seen before.  
  
And then it was gone as the wrecked car bounced into a concrete passageway leading underground. The momentary darkness gave way to the artificial illumination of a series of large fluroescent light fixtures along the tops of the walls as we sped along. I didn't know where we were going, perhaps to some underground shelter where my father was holed up. I mean, I didn't have any doubts about him - he'd have locked himself away from danger, away from people, away from anywhere where he might have to do something to interact with others.  
  
He wasn't a terribly nice person. But while I could admit in my head I hated him, I had so much trouble trying to externalise those feelings. He knew I hated him, I knew he hated me. That was all there was to it. A private party no one else was invited to.  
  
And yet, when he'd had this woman send a letter to me, I had got onto the first plane to Tokyo-3 I could find. Why? Why had I come running? I didn't know. Perhaps I'd thought he wanted to finally accept me as his son. Perhaps I'd done something that he was proud of.  
  
Hardly. I knew him. I knew him well. There had to be some other reason for him sending for me.  
  
The car rolled to a stop, then something clicked into place around the tyres. I started, but Miss Katsuragi touched my shoulder lightly.  
  
"No need to worry. It's just the car train locking us down." She paused, looked out the cracked front windscreen. "Did you bring your security card?" she asked, idly.  
  
"Oh! Yes. It's here, in my bag." I dug around, and found the folder I'd been sent. Contained within were documents, including a general "Welcome to NERV" information brochure and also an identification card. It was a photo ID, too,w ith a recent image, and I wondered how my father had managed to obtain that. Then I thought I was likely better off not knowing how. I started to read through the brochure, and was amazed at what was contained within.  
  
Definitely a public relations exercise, the brochure stated how NERV had grown from the old organisation GEHIRN, how it worked with UN defence contractors with budgets larger than most small countries' GNP, and how the HQ of the organisation stretched deep underground. I was reciting some of this to miss Katsuragi when there was a burst of light through the windows, and I looked up from the brochure.  
  
Into nothing.  
  
There was what seemed to be a golden sun in the distance, but I think that was a holographic representation of the lighting system for the cavern. It was huge - and it seemed only a little bit was excavated, as the walls suggested a spherical construct. At the 'ground' level, I could see a pyramid, attached to a reverse pyramid, a huge lake with an old naval destroyer, and lots of forest and grasslands. Other buildings dotted the subterrainian landscape, and I was awed by the vision. "It's a GeoFront!" I cried excitedly, having only read about such things in fanciful science fiction. "A real GeoFront!"  
  
"Welcome to the headquarters of NERV, Shinji," Miss Katsuragi said, with a slight smile.  
  
******  
  
The inside of the pyramid, where we eventually ended up, comprised a lot of deep pits, all technological in origin. It was a massive construct, extending far beneath the surface of the Earth. I didn't care to think how far down the drops under the escalators went, and I stuck mostly to the middle of the pathways. It really seemed as if there weren't adequate guard rails around to stop one from having an accident and plummeting to one's death.  
  
Miss Katsuragi led the way, although I think she was as lost as I was: she certainly hummed and ahhed often enough on our journey. And finally, she made a surreptitious call on her mobile, and when she folded the tiny phone up and placed it back in her jacket's pocket, she led the way authoritively to a nearby elevator.  
  
When the doors slid open, there was another woman inside, of about the same age. But she wore a blue pair of swimwear under a white lab coat. The fact that both her swimwear and her hair looked damp suggested she'd recently been immersed in a lot of water. Oh yeah, our tax at work here: there's a rampaging Angel on the surface and here are a bunch of pretty women having a swim!  
  
She glared at Miss Katsuragi, though, as we entered the lift. "Late again, I see, Misato," she said, an even voice tinged with an undercurrent of reproach.  
  
"Sorry!" Miss Katsuragi replied. "Won't happen again. I'm still trying to find my way around this place!"  
  
"You've been working in this facility for a year now, and you STILL get lost?" The blond woman clapped a hand theatrically to the side of her face. "We're doomed." She happened to glance down at me, staring up with my mouth slightly open. I quickly dropped my gaze back to the brochure, and continued to read furiously. "This is the Third?"  
  
"Apparently so," Miss Katsuragi answered. "You really think he can do it?"  
  
"We'll find out in a moment."  
  
"What? The Commander's going to launch?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"What about Rei? And Unit00?"  
  
"Unit00's locked up in cryostasis," the blond woman sighed. "The damage to the pauldrons and control mechanisms haven't yet been fully repaired, and we're waiting on replacement armour plating to be flown in from the Second Branch. They're dragging their feet with requisitions."  
  
I wasn't really aware of the conversation as it flowed around and over me, trying to absorb myself into the brochure as best I could. The walls of the elevator were more of a mesh design, I noticed, with what seemed to be a glass covering just outside that so one couldn't injure oneself on the shaft walls. Why someone would take that safety procedure and not make some decent guardrails for the areas around big drops, I don't know. I thought the architect and construction crews had been alternately rushed and given plenty of time to do their job. I don't know for sure, but that was my guess - I just couldn't figure out what reasons could be behind such a work environment.  
  
As the two adults behind me kept talking, we passed a large coolant tank of some kind, pink suspension liquids on the other side of the shaft walls, now also made of glass.  
  
"- Unit01's ready for pilot insertion. He won't need to do anything, just climb in and play soldier."  
  
"All right..." Miss Katsuragi sounded skeptical about something, but I didn't know what. The elevator ground to a halt, and the doors opened. Before me was a large concourse, leading out over the coolant fluids I'd seen mere moments ago. Technicians crowded about the concourse, and so I nearly missed the object of their attentions: a giant purple helmet.  
  
It was rounded, almsot samurai-like in appearance, but with some kind of mast projecting from the forehead and an elongated jaw, which was apparently only there for cosmetic purposes. So I thought. I felt a shiver run down my spine, as if something had started talking to be in the back of my head. Again, I had an intense feeling of dislocation, and so I hadn't noticed Miss Katsuragi take one arm and the blond take the other, and I didn't notice they'd led me out into the middle of the concourse, facing the beast from a few scant metres away.  
  
When I did return, I looked from one woman to the other, trying to figure out what was going on. Neither seemed willing to give me an answer to my questioning looks, so I said, "What's this?"  
  
"This is an Evangelion Advanced Soldier unit," the blond answered me. I skimmed the brochure, wondering if I'd missed that section, but she took the brochure out of my hands and threw it over her shoulder. "You won't find this in there."  
  
"What... why did you bring me here?"  
  
"Because I have a need for you."  
  
The voice from above was extremely familiar. The last time I'd heard it, he had told me... told me what exactly? I didn't know, couldn't remember. The feeling of dislocation was still upon me somewhat, and I felt like someone other than myself. But the voice was familiar.  
  
"Father." I nearly choked as I said that one word. With his words, I had my answer to my earlier question: what use was I to be for him? I believed then that the beast in front of me was that reason. He expected me to do something with it. I turned and faced upwards, where my father stood in an observation dome. "Why did you bring me here?"  
  
"I said: Because I have a need for you. I can use you now." That same smug, self-assured grin of his that never reached anywhere past his mouth. I remembered that all too well, and remembered wishing I could reach it to hit him, the last time we had talked. So if I could remember that image, why could I not remember the last words he said to me? I had a feeling they were important.  
  
"What do you need me for?" But I knew. The play had to take its course, though. And father knew that as well.  
  
"To pilot Evangelion Unit01." The purple beast behind me. I had known it all along, from the moment I'd first seen it. That had been the voice: this mighty slumbering warrior, awaking a sparkplug to allow it to start.  
  
"Is... is that the only reason you called for me?" I had to hope that he had changed. Otherwise, things would be as bad, or even worse, than they had been last time.  
  
"Yes." He didn't have to speak, though. The smug grin had grown almost imperceptibly larger as I had spoken.  
  
Could I do this? Was I capable of piloting a giant... whatever that was, with no training? No. I couldn't. I knew that without asking. "I won't do it, father!"  
  
He looked down on me for a moment, then turned to one side, and spoke something into a video monitor to his side. He turned then, and left the dome. I stood there, shoulders slumped, feeling as if I wanted to cry, but having no tears to do so. I'd cried those out years ago, and there was no chance of any more finding their way out now. Technicians buffeted me about the concourse, and I drifted to the edge, and looked up at the giant before me. Something in it called to me, but I wasn't going to do it for my father.  
  
After a few seconds, alarms began blasting out at top volume, and a PA crackled into life. "Target's become active again! It's on the move into the lower business district!"  
  
A door on the opposite side of the concourse from the lift opened, and several doctors and orderlies rushed a trolley bed down towards the ingress point between the giant's shoulders. Someone was lying on the bed, gritting teeth against what sounded like great pain. As the trolley passed me, I saw a young girl, about my age. She was an albino, with bluish hair, and piercing red eyes that slitted open as the trolley passed by. Her skin was almost alabaster, and she wore a white skintight garment, with plug fittings and coloured tabs dotting the surface; for what reason, I'm not sure, but I assumed they had something to do with piloting this giant.  
  
She was also injured.  
  
An eye was bandaged over, and one of her arms was wrapped up in a plaster cast. Someone had torn the arms off her garment to allow her to get her arms into it reasonably easy. Once she was at the base of the ingress point, she struggled to stand upright off the trolley, orderlies assisting her. I admired her courage - I didn't think I could stand in such pain as she was obviously in. As she stood, I saw a 00 stenciled between her breasts, on the garment, coloured black. She gave me another glance, why, I don't know, but it was almost as if she knew me somehow. I didn't know. I didn't know her, at least.  
  
As the orderlies let her arms go, so she could stand on her own, there was an almighty crash from above, and part of a ceiling support strut crashed down from above. Technicians scurried for cover, and the orderlies dove into the pink fluid to escape it as it hit the trolley, and flipped it upside down. As it flipped, though, it caught the young girl on the back of her thighs, and smashed her brutally to the ground. I'd managed to keep my balance, though, and I rushed to find if she was okay, forgetting all about Miss Katsuragi and the blond woman.  
  
She was lying on her side, trying to roll over, when I reached her. She didn't look so good, and fresh blood dotted her garment and was soaking through her bandages. I helped her onto the flattened trolley, and pulled my hands back. She was conscious, obviously, and even more obviously in greater pain than before. I stared at my palms: blood covered them. The orderlies and doctors, now recovered, rushed back and assisted her, pushing me backwards. I staggered back to the ingress point, and watched as she was bundled off. Miss Katsuragi was speaking into her mobile again as she approached me with a firm walk that said not to move.  
  
"Yes sir, I understand, sir. Rei's unable to pilot, though. She's got to go back to the infirmary. Right, sir, I'll take care of it." She snapped the phone shut as she reached me. "Shinji, you're our last hope."  
  
"Don't joke about things like this, Miss Misato."  
  
She gripped me by my shoulders. "If I was joking, I wouldn't be here talking to you. You've been brought here to pilot this Evangelion. Your medical records have told us you've got the correct physio-psychological phenomenon needed to activate and process the Evangelion's nerve commands, and we have no other choice right now. You've got to get in and pilot it."  
  
"I can't, Miss Misato!" I said. "I don't even know how to pilot that thing!"  
  
"All you have to do is sit in it, and we'll do the rest," she said, in a strong voice that was somewhat soothing: I don't know, perhaps it was the fact I wasn't being given a choice in the matter, and that made it better.   
  
But somehow, I found myself beind sealed up in a long tube, sitting in a seat that wasn't exactly comfortable. I'd had two nerve clips thrust into my hands as I'd stepped inside, and I was being instructed in how to attach them to my scalp so the Evangelion would respond to my mind as much as my hands and feet - not that I was expecting either method of control to come to anything. As soon as the external door clicked shut, and the handles spun around and sunk into the depression surrounding them ( for safety reasons, I supposed, so if I got thrown about, I wouldn't tear open my skin on them) the plug slid home into it's position inside the Evangelion.  
  
I heard Miss Katsuragi's voice on the comm line. "Shinji, just relax. This next part might be a bit freaky." Freaky was an understatement. As soon as she'd stopped talking, bright orange fluid began rapidly filling the cylinder from the bottom, rushing up towards me at speed. I panicked, and took in a deep breath just before it closed over my head. "It's called LCL, Shinji, and it's oxygenated liquid. Just breathe it in normally, and you'll be fine." her voice was calm and soothing, but that didn't do a lot for me. Within moments, I couldn't hold on to my breath any longer, and bubbles burst from my mouth. Liquid rushed into my lungs, and after the initial panic had passed, I found I could breath again, albeit with an iron taste in the back of my mouth. "How do you feel?" she asked.  
  
"Ah fewl lick Ah'n goooa b' shick..."  
  
"That'll pass," came the blond woman's voice.  
  
"Shush, Ritsuko," Miss Katsuragi said quietly. Then, louder, "We're moving you up to the launch gantry now. Then you'll be moved up to the surface. Just do what we say and you'll be fine, okay?"  
  
I realised there was an image of her hanging in front of me. We had video communications! So I guessed she could also see me, and I nodded in reply.  
  
"Good." Then: "Hold on."  
  
There was a click from the back of the Evangelion, and a display in front of me flickered into life.  
  
"We've got enough neural data to start the nerve connections." As she spoke, my mind gave a slight twinge as my perceptions altered, and the cylinder around me swum into different colours before stablising on an exterior view, as if I had windows to the outside. Another display flipped open then, showing the various sections of the Evangelion unit in a three-dimenional solid-geometry model, that spun as I thought about it. A nice touch. More geometry formed above and behind the shoulder pauldrons. These reached down and connected with the Evangelionl; at the same time, the Evangelion shuddered as something latched on to the outside. "Stand by for launch."  
  
There was a brief moment in which I considered what Miss Katsuragi meant by launch, and then I knew. Rocketed upwards at incredible speeds. I thought I'd black out, but the LCL fluid cushioned me in ways I didn't know liquids could. And then my vision cleared, and the Evangelion was out of the tight claustrophobic tunnels we'd been shooting through. The head snapped back with the abrupt cease of acceleration, and then down again. The view inside returned to normal, seeing a ground-level view of the city.  
  
Miss Katsuragi's image popped out again. "Shinji, grip the control handles, and try to concentrate on walking. just one foot in front of the other."  
  
I heard the blond woman, this Ritsuko, mutter behind Miss Katsuragi that even walking would be too advanced for me. And that solidified the idea in my head: I was going to walk, even if it killed me. I leaned forward in the seat, trying to get comfortable. My hands gripped at the control yokes, and I pulled back towards me, thinking, 'left foot, left foot, left foot,' and then the image of the Evangelion in front of me lifted it's left foot, and swung it forward. It impacted on the ground, none too steadily, but at least I kept the giant upright. Then I did the same, and pulled the right foot forward, swung it past the left, and planeted it further up the street. I felt resistance behind me, and turned to look: the view from outside the beast showed a large plug and lead connecting me to the launch gantry.  
  
"That's your power supply," Miss Katsuragi said in my ear. "If that becomes disconnected, you'll have five minutes to attach a new plug before your battery supply runs out and your Evangelion powers down."  
  
"Incredible," Ritsuko muttered behind Miss Katsuragi. "His synch ratio's sitting at thirty percent."  
  
"That's good, isn't it?" Miss Katsuragi asked, turning to face behind her.  
  
"For someone who hasn't attempted piloting an Evangelion before, and has had no training, that's exceptional."  
  
I tuned out their conversation as I focussed on walking. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right -  
  
- and then I froze. There was something stepping out in front of me. Three blocks up. A giant in black and bone livery. I felt my blood run cold, and I froze in place, hoping it wouldn't see me. Miss Katsuragi was saying something in my ear, but I couldn't hear her: my mind was rebelling. Walking I could do, but how could I fight this impossible creature before me?  
  
And then it charged and Miss Katsuragi screamed in my ears and my eye hurt  
  
  
  
  
TO BE CONTINUED...  
  
Author's Notes: The title for this is paraphrased from a novel by John Marsden ("Tomorrow, When The War Began") which tells the tale of Australia invaded by Indonesia, and the trials of 7 teenagers who managed to stay free by accident. The series is actually 7 novels long, and I just finished the 7th the other week; they're very well-written and show a lot of research, especially into what happens in war situations. They're well-worth a read.  
  
Anyways, like I said, these chapters will come a bit slower than the other fics I write, and possibly a little slower if I get my other fic series in any decent kind of shape to start posting. But I enjoyed writing this. Trynig not to make the chapters as long as the others I've done, but this one... bleh. When I try to write short, I can't :P Although when I try to write long, I get huge chapters - thank god I've got none of those Trek fics aorund anymore ;) 


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